Kakutogi Road: The Chronological History of MMA |
We are back for our 2nd heaping of brutality from the UWF-I this month as we continue to delve into the bloodstained roots of MMA in an effort to try and figure this crazy sport out once and for all. The date is 8-28-92, and Takada & Co. have made a stop by the infamous Korakuen Hall to continue what they started in Sapporo a few weeks prior. While we will have a repeat of the same main event in Albright/Allen, this card is looking a lot stronger with a return from the foot-fighting master, Makato Ohe, as well as some more singles matches from the roster.
Standing Bout: Makoto Ohe vs. Damien Meyer
One of the most noticeable holes in the UWF-I card from earlier in the month was the glaring absence of Ohe, who always manages to elevate any card that he’s on. Here he returns to test his might against Australian Damien Meyer, whose professional career remains a bit of mystery to me but does appear to have stayed involved in the kickboxing realms from down under. The bell rings, and Meyer may be one of the fastest and most explosive kickers that I’ve yet seen. However, he does not seem to have any regard for caution, and just throws that out the window to assail Ohe. Against a lesser mortal, this may have been a good strategy, but Ohe is simply too composed here, and patiently weathers Meyer's attacks to time his own brutal kick to Meyer’s midsection. That ended the fight, and we saw an intense celebration from the normally calm Ohe. Honestly, I think that this rare display of emotion from Ohe was due to him being in dangerous waters with this matchup. Meyer’s explosiveness could have easily forced Ohe to be on the losing end, but there is no substitute for experience. With some more temperance, I can see Meyer as being a serious threat in the future.
ML: These two were really going at it right from the outset, and my first thought is it was going to be really hard for any of the pro wrestling matches to match the intensity of this legitimate kickboxing bout. Their kicks were particularly blistering, and I was really disappointed that Ohe scored an early knockout with a liver kick because this looked like it was going to be a really high quality, action packed bout.
Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Yoshihiro Takayama
Masakazu Maeda was too good for pro wrestling, and when he left that realm, it forced us to have to try and pick up the pieces with a never-ending series of matches with his replacement, Takayama. Yes, lazy Booker Miyato would be giving us Kanehara/Maeda #10 right now if it wasn’t for Maeda’s departure. The match starts, and the first minute may have produced the most intense showing from Takayama yet. He charged in full blast towards Kanehara, and while he couldn’t always overcome his awkward gait or make his knees land 100%, he was able to put out a spirited and sincere effort until he was grounded by Kanehara and made to suffer the indignity of a headlock/neck-crank. There wasn’t much Takayama could do once things hit the mat, however, and we all had to groan our way through a sequence where Kanehara applied an armbar and waited until Takayama could drag his leg over to the ropes before putting any pressure on the submission. The rest of the match was what we have come to expect… Kanehara put 100% energy into the proceedings, but Takayama can’t overcome his genetic limitations, and as it turns out, neither can Kanehara. Takayama simply isn’t suitable for trying to emulate Maeda’s go-for-broke-at-every-opportunity style, and would be a better fit in a different styled promotion. Kanehara did all he could here, and Takayama was putting in real effort, but his goofiness held this back from taking off. The energy of Kanehara is always enjoyable, but it's irritating knowing that he would be capable of so much more if they would bother to put anyone else in with him. This match is hard to rate as it had moments where it seemed like it was going to take off, but Takayama would find a way to kill the momentum with his clumsiness. Kanehara finishing things with an Americana instead of a Boston crab was cool, though. ** ¾
ML: This is thankfully the last of four consecutive Kanehara vs. Takayama matches, as UWF-I starts their rookie league next month, which means they will meet again. Luckily, even Miyato wasn't so lazy that he had them wrestle in the first league match, but unfortunately, that was only so he could have them get a few wins before their big league showdown, which went ultimately resulted in them meeting yet again in the final! Takayama at least had some energy today, and while he was lunging and lurching all over the place, this started pretty well with a brief aggressive striking sequence going right into a mat sequence where Takayama could catch his breath and regroup. Takayama was already noticeably slower once he got up after escaping Kanehara's armbar. They stuck with this format of just going back and forth between striking and grappling every 30 seconds to a minute, and while Takayama was still noticeably more winded each time they got back up, he wasn't completely embarrassing himself today if you can discount the fact that nothing he does resembles proper trained technique, and he's basically just slapping and grazing anytime he manages to sloppily connect. Kanehara was excellent, as always, but Takayama is such an uncoordinated goofball that it is actively difficult to even concentrate on what Kanehara was doing because it looked so normal, trained, and fluid in comparison. Everything is an effort for Takayama, but because no one is efforting more than Takayama, the fans often don't know whether to support him or laugh at him, and he starts to feel like one of these cult figures where he gets a lot of reaction, although it is rather mixed and inconsistent in nature. I could have lived without the dropkick exchange, or Takayama trying any sort of jumping kick for that matter, but this was a mostly oddly sort of watchable as a semi trainwreck version of an all out UWF-I match that we knew from Kanehara vs. Maeda would be excellent with two capable performers.
Mark Silver vs. Masahito Kakihara
Kakihara has been on fire lately, giving us all sorts of great moments in the last few months, and was single-handedly responsible for saving the 8-14-92 event from going into the scrapheap of history. Here he is facing Mark Silver, who comes from the Tom Burton school of Western wrestling, where you make a decent enough showing of yourself without really impressing anyone, either. Thankfully, all Kakihara needs is a target, and his insane palms will do the rest. Silver impresses me in the beginning by intentionally staying out of the pulsating palm range and charging in with authority to the phone booth to avoid Kakihara’s offense. Silver is also putting some serious heat on his strikes, which is more than what I was expecting. Kakihara’s first bit of offense didn’t originate via molten hands, but rather some slick judo. Silver was negating him with a front headlock when we saw a wonderful Kari-Ashi (foot sweep), which almost brought tears of joy to my eyes as I remembered how Sexyama would humiliate Jake Shields with similar shenanigans. Silver was able to force Kakihara to mainly use his better-than-expected ground skills though most of the match. Like Tamura, Kakihara has a lot of swiftness when making his transitions, even if he lacks a lot of submission savvy, oftentimes relying on simple ankle-locks/kneebars. We also saw several cool moments like the first successful Kimura utilized from the bottom position. In addition, we also witnessed Kakihara mount Silver and grapevine his legs with Silver’s, which is something taught on one’s first day at BJJ class, but isn’t something you would expect to in the early 90s shoot-style realms. The match was going quite well until the credulity-straining crustacean from Boston showed up and soured things. Overall, this was a lot better than I would have expected, especially considering that we didn’t get the usual tour de force of Kakihara’s palms. While we all would have liked to have seen that, this lack of striking was somewhat offset by Silver’s best and most assured performance to date. Everything was going smoothly until the last couple of mins, where we not only got the silly crabs, but Silver’s striking got soft, and the ending was pure hokum. Even with the flaws, I liked it. ***
ML: Only slightly outdone by Kanehara's endless repeats, here we had our third matchup between Kakihara vs. Silver, which we have at least had a three month break from, and if Miyato will stop insisting on trying to milk 30 minutes out of, might perhaps reach a bronze standard. This continued the trend of Kakihara focusing on his ground game, which was good for Silver because amateur wrestling is his background. Shockingly, Kakihara was often outwrestling Silver because he is so fast he was repeatedly beating him to the position in the scrambles. Silver, obviously, had the big advantage when he could slow things down and just weigh on Kakihara, but he had to really work to get himself into position to be able to do that. This match had some good struggling, and while it wasn't quite recommendable, it was very impressive in that it was almost good in spite of Kakihara using his B game 85% of the time. Had they incorporated more striking sequences, rather than using it more as a training session for Kakihara to step up his ground game, I'm pretty sure this would have been a good match. However, shoring up Kakihara's weakness is also likely to be worth more in the long run.
Yuko Miyato vs. Tatsuo Nakano
Booker Miyato may have been one of the laziest men to helm the destiny of a wrestling promotion, but he was a top-shelf performer in 1992. Here, he must face the weakest link on the native side of the UWF-I’s roster in Tatsuo Nakano, who is looking more and more out of place in this new shoot-era that is unfolding. What followed here was both weird and strangely compelling. Most of the match was Miyato and Nakano feeling each other out, moving in and out without either man wanting to fully commit to a full-scale assault. That’s not to say that nothing happened, however. Even though there wasn’t a lot of consistent action, both men were very intense, especially Miyato who would continue to pepper Nakano with not a few hard slaps down the pipe. This odd cadence lasted until the last couple of mins when they both decided that they simply had to start slapping the stuffing out of each other, which culminated with a delicious spinning-back kick from Miyato. Miyato’s glory was to be brief, however, as Nakano pulled out the win with a bizarre variant of a leg-scissor submission. While I wouldn’t call this great, it kept my attention, and it didn’t feel like anything that we’ve seen up to this point. ***
ML: Though these two seemed to fight on every UWF show in 1988 & 1989, partially because their encounters were all 20-30 minutes long, this was only their second singles match in UWF-I, with Miyato picking up the victory on 7/30/91. Starting with 11/29/89, their matches had shifted to being in the 7-10 minute range, which was good in the sense that their longer matches would tend to stall out on the ground with Nakano being very inactive, but bad because the newer ones were sometimes just kind of thin. This match definitely falls into the later category, with next to nothing happening in the first 7 minutes. The final 2 minutes, however, were excellent, and more than made the match worthwhile. If, like MMA judges, you're only memory is what happened in the final minutes, this was definitely a highlight of the show, but overall, the layout was rather poor. It may have been an actual good match had they interspersed some of this action early on, and given it a chance to breathe. Nakano got the win here, to avenge last year's loss.
Yoji Anjo vs. Kiyoshi Tamura
Now for an opportunity to tear the house down, as it’s been almost a year since we got to see an opportunity for Kiyoshi Tamura to have a singles match that had some potential to be dynamite. Since January, Tamura has been stuck in either pointless tag-matches or having to put guys like Glacier and Mark Silver through their paces. The last time these two met alone was in July of 1991 in one of the best matches of that year. The tone for the fight is set when Anjo tries to shake Tamura's hand and is slapped for his trouble. The match starts, and Tamura is looking a lot like a prime Frank Shamrock in the way that he effortlessly moves around in a wrestling stance, all while being ready to make any kind of needed transition at a moment's notice. It doesn’t take long for the action to go to the mat, and it’s almost impossible to keep up with Tamura, as he quickly goes from armbar to triangle to heel hook in the blink of an eye. Anjo keeps himself alive by going for his own leg-attacks, but can never stay on one thing for any length of time due to Tamura’s wily ways. This match wound up being a 30-min Tamura masterclass on how to be a badass, with nonstop creative attacks, transitions, and general fluidity that showcases how when this style is done properly, it easily embarrasses what else passes for pro-wrestling. It went to a draw, and whenever there was a brief moment where I thought the action was going to stall out, someone would kickstart things again with an inventive maneuver or entry. While I would have liked to have seen a bit more striking, and there was no doubt that it was getting very theatrical towards the end with Tamura down to his last rope escape before getting Anjo in a choke right as the bell was about to ring, this was total fire from start to finish. Furthermore, this is a match that only Anjo could have done, as there isn't anyone else on the roster that had the cardio to keep up with Tamura at this pace for the entire thirty mins. **** ½
ML: Tamura vs. Anjo should have been one of the most natural rivalries in UWF-I, as Anjo was the energetic, skilled, feisty, hard working upper mid carder in the UWF, and now Tamura, who had a different attitude but all the said attributes and more, needed to surpass him in order to become one of the main stars of the new promotion, if Anjo wasn't going to be allowed to finally seize that deserved role for himself. Tamura should also have needed to go through Anjo to get to Yamazaki, who was the more established great worker, having been at or near the top of the card since joining the original UWF a few months after it started in 1984. Obviously, Tamura & Anjo were also two of the best workers in the promotion, and had already delivered the best shoot-wrestling match of 1991 on 7/3/91, with Anjo's experience proving too much for young Tamura, as it did again when they met in the 2nd best tag match of the year on 3/17/92. Shockingly and sadly, this great 30 minute draw, which one would have thought would have set up Tamura finally getting the victory in 1993, was actually their final singles meeting. This was a great back and forth counter war from start to finish! The sequences were just amazing, as there was no need for rope escapes when both had the answer for everything the other threw at them. This is the sort of defense that I love, going all out to protect yourself, but using that knowledge to go right back on the offensive. I don't understand the criticisms of this match being overlong, there was more action, transitions, counters, thwarted attempts, etc in the first 5 minutes than on the entire rest of the show combined. I mean, sure non-stop motion on the mat for 30 minutes would have been more fun, but cardio is never an issue for these two, and I agree with their decision that it was only reasonable for someone to establish 30 seconds of control once in a while. It was clearly one of the most technical matches of the year, with amazing fast scrambles, but they were also telling a story in exploding when there was a position to be had rather than as a stylistic choice. I thought the bout was actually helped by their willingness to slow down once a position/lock had been acheived because it seemed more like they were actually trying to win than merely provide a certain brand of entertainment. Anjo was usually the one that succeeded in slowing things down, and this was one of the ways the match was able to portray him still being slightly superior, despite not having the speed of Tamura to immediately threaten by countering into a possible finisher as consistently. There wasn't a lot of standup here, which was to Tamura's advantage, but Anjo had his moments including intercepting a single leg with a blistering kick to the head, and later scoring a knockdown with a couple of inside leg kicks. He then tried to finish with a high kick, but Tamura stayed on its feet, and when Anjo tried for a German suplex, Tamura did a go behind and dropped into a rear naked choke. The early minutes were literally a leg-lock clinic, but Anjo doing his best to shift to kicks down the stretch. This wasn't easy given Tamura did outstanding counters such as catching a kick and spinning down into an ankle lock, but was one of the things that kept this from obviously looking like a draw, as well as again giving him an aspect of superiority. He wasn't fooling around anymore, and Tamura was doing his best to match this with submission attempts, even if some were of the pro-wrestling variety. The sequences as a whole may have been slightly less amazing than last years classic, but there was more top notch stuff here because the match was almost twice as long. The stamina these two showed was amazing; they had more left after 30 minutes of mostly fast countering than Takayama did after his first 30 second blitz. Another great match from these two that is the best thing we've seen thusfar in 1992 other than the best of the Kanehara vs. Maeda matches. ****1/2
Nobuhiko Takada & Mark Fleming vs. Kazuo Yamazaki & Steve Cox
One must wonder if Takada ever felt any remorse or shame for having witnessed an awesome clinic like Tamura/Anjo and then proceed to lazily coast his way through another pointless tag-team match? Yes, our fearless leader has been on autopilot since losing the coveted “Best in the World” title to the Albright-monster, and I doubt that tonight will be any different. Thankfully, we will only have one tag match this time out, which is far more palatable than two or three.
Steve Cox has returned, this time with a neon-yellow singlet that’s as bright as the noonday sun. He brought his friend Kazuo Yamazaki with him, who is surely wondering why he didn’t go back to New Japan when the Newborn UWF imploded to avoid this fate that’s now befallen him. Facing them will be Takada and Fleming. Fleming and Cox open things with a nice throwback to the old realistic style of pro wrestling. Cox got Fleming down with a couple of surprisingly nice takedowns before giving us the most labored half-crab yet witnessed. Fleming was on the losing in the of this wrestle-war until he wisely decided to use his power and weight advantage and just start man-handling Cox. Takada then tagged in and finished the job with some movie star theatrics and an armbar. Short enough to be passable, but pointless outside of giving Fleming and Cox some ring time.
ML: I was surprised at the quality of Fleming vs. Cox. While it was a little slow, they really did a good job of keeping the sequences evolving. Some of the offense would have been better in a strictly pro wrestling match, but at the same time, they weren't simply using all the predictable holds and counter holds. All the interesting stuff ceased once Takada checked in. He threw a few good kicks, but was all about control on the mat, without having a clue how to actually secure the body parts required to maintain a position if the opponent was actually resisting. Cox didn't get to do anything to him, quickly submitting to the armbar. I would love to tell you about the great work that Yamazaki did this match, but he inexplicably never even got into the ring! Good grief!
Gary Albright vs. Bad News Allen (Part 2!)
I really think that the UWF-I dropped the ball here with Allen. Granted, he was well past his physical prime, but he still had a lot of stock from his judo and New Japan glory days, so if they had let him run through a gauntlet of opponents before getting to Albright, then there could have been a solid buildup that would have opened some future possibilities. As it stands, no one benefited from the last outing. It didn’t feel like a total squash, and Allen is the first person that doesn’t look small or weak next to Gary, but neither man came out ahead with the 6min defeat from a couple of weeks ago. Because of that lack of planning, we now have a repeat main event that can’t have the appropriate amount of sizzle going into it.
The best part of this had to be the pre-fight interviews where both men showcased their articulate and well-spoken demeanors. The fight starts with the Albright-monster charging Bad News before hitting him with a crazy suplex. Thankfully, Allen brushed it off and returned the favor with a spectacular O-Goshi (hip throw) of his own. What wasn’t spectacular was the ne-waza portions, as both men move like molasses when grounded on the canvas. This main event could have been a decent match if they allowed it to be the least bit competitive, but outside of permitting Bad News a brief moment of nice judo, it was just a suplex marathon that was a waste of everyone’s time. I usually don’t get aggravated when reviewing these, but this was frustrating as they could have had a decent build-up leading into this and could have even set things up to possibly introduce another monster in town, with a strong showing from Allen. No, it never would have been confused with MOTY material, but there was a lot more that could have been done with this, outside of just a Saturday morning squash match. I don’t blame Allen or Albright, instead, I have to look at Miyato, who may very well be the worst booker I can think of. I award this no points, and we are all painfully reminded why this outfit didn’t make it when it had unlimited potential to do so. ½ *
ML: For me, the worst sort of booking is when your main goal is to make another promotion look bad. The huge problem with this is, the wrestler is in your promotion now, not theirs! So you have a star in Bad News who was a big name in the WWE, not going to headline a pay per view, but certainly capable of being on top of a house show, and he happens to be an Olympic bronze medalist in Judo, so he isn't your everyday circus performer. The only logical reason to have him rematch Gary Albright two weeks later is to have him win this time, so you can get something out of him in the future, kind of a hedging move in that you didn't feel comfortable enough having him just come in and beat your unstoppable champion, but now you are willing to move on to the reason he is actually here, and create some new matches that can draw. Unfortunately, time would tell us that there was no reason, after these two big one-sided losses, Allen got a bunch of wins against jobbers, leading to almost no notable matches or useful losses. I mean, he was 6-2 in 1993, with a meaningful loss to up and comer Kakihara, and another to Yamazaki, someone who would reasonably beat him assuming a booker that wasn't retarded. Certainly, there had to be better expenditures of funds than to be paying a fighter of Bad News' stature to just be running through rookies such as Takayama and Sakaraba in order to get that one win for Kakihara, immediately propelling him to a loss to Dennis Koslowski! As far as tonight's match went, it was another instantly forgettable jobber bout, even shorter and more one-sided than their last. Allen got one judo throw in, but otherwise he was riding on Gary's lame train, with a first class ticket on the nonstop to nowhere. The work was probably better than their first match, despite the mat portions almost moving in reverse, but again it was so brief, it was hard to make much of it.
Conclusion: Outside of going into a fit of rage at the ineptness of the main event, this is well worth recommending due to the absurdly awesome Tamura/Anjo match. If it wasn’t for that match, it would have missed its worthy status as the matches that preceded it, while all fine, didn’t quite make it into great territory. Had the Takada tag affair not been so utterly pointless and if booker Miyato didn't give us a plate of hot garbage for the main event, this could have been the most top-to-bottom consistent card from the UWF-I yet. As it stands, it is a decent event with one must-see match.
ML: The funny thing is, had the show ended with the all stars of the promotion delivering another great match, we would have lauded this show given everything before it other than Takayama was pretty entertaining, and even his match managed to have some moments in spite of him. The last two matches being so utterly pointless really leaves a sour aftertaste, but we know that Takada and Albright are not going to have decent matches despite them being the main event or semifinal, and just have to rejoice when Miyato manages to not screw things up to the point that the talent here can still deliver a must see classic.
*In Other News*
A while back, we reported on the recent “Worlds Martial Arts Challenge” event, which “Superfoot” Bill Wallace was a part of, and he recently spoke in a recent issue of Black Belt Magazine about his experiences participating. He said that he loved the idea of getting the best fighters in kickboxing and putting them in a PPV setting, but was disappointed at the organization of the event, and lamented the fact that there are no standardized rules to be found within American Kickboxing. Sadly, Wallace is right and if things continue the way they have it looks like that will never change.
The Movie Channel recently aired a marital arts film marathon, which featured kickboxing legend Kathy Long. Long was on hand to talk about her recent experiences in Hollywood as she did stunt work in Batman Returns, doubling as Catwoman for some of Michele Pfeiffer’s scenes. Some of the films that played were American Kickboxer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Angel Town, and American Ninja 4.